The Waterrower has recently been made famous by Kevin Spacy as the rowing machine used in the ‘House of Cards’. It is a type of wooden rowing machine produced and manufactured by Waterrower Inc. in New England, USA. The rowers were designed by ex-US national team rower john Duke in the mid 1980’s and the company to manufacture them was established in 1988.
The First Degree Newport rower utilises water resistance for a more effective workout that’s low impact, so it’s gentle on the body. You’ll focus on building up all the major muscle groups as you use a machine that offers a very realistic rowing experience.To increase resistance flip the valve control to add more water to the paddle water tank. To decrease resistance, remove water from the tank and enjoy a less challenging stroke for the cool down or warm up a portion of your workout. The tank on the Newport can hold a minimum of nine litres of water and a maximum of seventeen litres.
Sometimes, slides are placed underneath the erg to try to simulate the movement of being on the water. It allows the machine to move back and forth smoothly as if there is water beneath you. The slides can be connected in rows or columns so that rowers are forced to move together on the ergometer, similar to how they would match up their rhythm in a boat.

This rower has been designed to ensure stroke consistency and utilises a triple blade impeller system. Perfect for smaller houses or apartments, this model includes the easy tilt feature for fast fold-up and storing. Assembly is a one man job that will take twenty to thirty minutes to complete. A step by step illustrated instruction manual has been included, in addition to all of the tools needed for this process.

When waves run into water moving in the opposite direction, they are slowed, just as if they were approaching a beach. Wave length becomes shorter, wave height higher, and they may break. A good (bad) example of this is an ebb current flowing out of Raccoon Strait into waves coming in from the Golden Gate. Good rough water training, if that’s what you want.
In sweep or sweep-oar rowing, each rower has one oar, held with both hands. This is generally done in pairs, fours, and eights. In some regions of the world, each rower in a sweep boat is referred to either as port or starboard, depending on which side of the boat the rower's oar extends to. In other regions, the port side is referred to as stroke side, and the starboard side as bow side; this applies even if the stroke oarsman is rowing on bow side and/or the bow oarsman on stroke side.
Outside of resistance type, we found the number-one arbiter of ride feel to be cord quality. Water ergometers tend to employ nylon cords, while air ergometers feature metal chains — a durability factor we anticipated would result in our favoring air. But while all three water rowers aced our expectation of smooth, high-tension strokes, perfecting the chain seems to be more difficult: Some tug with just a slight rumble, others feature bouncy, grinding chains that are incredibly loud, something akin to angry snoring. As for nylon, the best wind and unwind like elastic silk — no slack, no sound, no catching, just perfectly even tension throughout the stroke.